The Stupid Crabbe
by KatieBY
Summary: Crabbe was an idiot, everyone knew it, his parents, his classmates, and even his teachers; so it shouldn't really surprise him that Madame Pince thought the same.


**The Houses Competition**

House: GRYFFINDOR

Class: History of Magic

Category: Drabble.

Prompt: [Setting] Hogwarts Library

Word Count: 868

**Special thanks to my Gryffindor team for betaing this chapter**

**The Stupid Crabbe**

Vincent walked with his fists clenched to the stupid place in the stupid school where the stupid books were. Although he'd been in Hogwarts for a short time, his parents had thought about not sending him; why send the boy when he was obviously too stupid to be schooled? His older brother had graduated the previous year, so it wasn't exactly necessary for him to come. It'd been a great disappointment for his parents, who'd stopped paying for tutors to prepare him for school for school after several of them had quit. They'd given up, simply because his brain was not working well.

Entering slowly to prevent his clumsy feet from making a lot of noise, he could smell the old pages that would make him easily sneeze, as well as hear the slight murmur of quills scraping against scrolls. There were a numbernumber of students from different houses distributed everywhere.

He went toward the shelves and frowned at them. Professor Snape had thrown him out of study time in the Slytherin common room, believing he was being lazy and obtuse on purpose when he'd asked him to read the first paragraph of a reading for potions. He'd replied that he wwouldn't read it, and so the professor had told him to go to the library and try to put something in that hollow head. He pulled out one of the books at random and opened it to it to the first page. Just looking at it made his head ache. Feeling more and more idiotic and useless, he threw the book across the room until it crashed into another bookshelf, which caused many more books to scatter. Several people glanced up, and Madam Pince rose from her seat and walked toward him.

"Mr. Crabbe, what do you think you are doing?" she said, her voice stern despite it being a whisper.

"I—" Vincent simply shrugged his shoulders. He tended to stutter when he was under pressure, and doing it here in front of so many people would dishonor him.

"What does that poster say, Mr. Crabbe?" she asked him, pointing to the place where the library's main rule was located.

Frightened and frustrated, he peered at the sign. He tried to understand what it said, but the letters moved in a funny way and it was impossible for him to define what he was reading.

"Mmm… there it says—five—mmm—I—cen?" He knew that every word that came out of his mouth was meaningless; he was sure that he'd missed a letter but it danced around.

Madame Pince's frown softened and she looked at the sign analytically which cleary said, 'silence please.'

"Mr. Crabbe, come with me," she said with a nod of her head.

She walked straight to her desk where she looked for a scroll. She handed it to him and ordered him to sit at one of the tables near her desk.

'GreatGreat!' Vincent thought. Now he would write and confirm how stupid he was; maybe he would get expelled after all. Hogwarts wasn't going to waste its time on someone like him.

He saw Madam Pince walking around a bookshelf without students, as though she was looking for a book.

She soon returnedShe soon returned with a somewhat odd-looking-looking book. Even for someone who was allergic to books, he'd seen some all covered in leather or some other skin; this book was clearly covered in a weird material that seemed somewhat Muggle-like. He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Be very careful with what comes out of that mouth; that ignorance is what put you in this position," she said before he could say anything.

Vincent ducked his head, staring at the details of the hard and polished oak wood table.

Madam Pince opened a page and carefully read an exact point. Vincent moved his foot anxiously against the table leg.

"Write September on the parchment," she ordered.

Sighing, he tried to make his brain work. After a while, he handed her some messy strokes that looked quite like '5ebmetper.'

The old woman frowned. She made him write the entire alphabet and even some numbers on the page.

"I see..." she murmured, looking up to make sure everyone was minding their own business. "Do you have trouble reading and writing?"

What kind of trick question was that?

He shrugged. "I'm stupid," he said, chuckling.

"I sincerely doubt that, Mr. Crabbe. We need to do a few tests and talk to your Head of House, but I think you might have dyslexia. It can be managed, but Muggles have the advantage in studying this field—"

"I am not a filthy Muggle!" The frustrated scream caused heads to look in their direction again.

"I warned you about your tone; that'll be a week of detention," she commented irritably in a low voice. "The only thing that makes you stupid in this situation would be that nonsense idea about the purity of blood you have; do you want to be seen as stupid all your life or let Muggle science help you? It's your decision."

Vincent looked down at the table again, very confused.

"I'll talk to Professor Snape; think about this, Mr. Crabbe," she said.

After a moment of silence she turned on her heel and left.

…

**The struggle with dyslexia is something completely serious, however, it is not something limiting, I have dyslexia and still enjoy reading, writing and even learning new languages since English is not my mother tongue.**


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